There are a few others but the point is that many times the expensive players who are in the middle of lucrative contracts are not the guys performing. BB and Kraft realize this and it's why they are always looking for value guys who can come in with minimal risk and if they succeed great, if not then move on. They pay the guys who are young and performing...VW,Gronk,Hernandez,Mankins,and Brady(in the past before he was older) You cannot go out and pay 100 million dollars to mario Williams type FA's or Darrell revis types. It is not conducive to fielding a succesful team year in and year out.

Anyway check the lists of offensive linemen etc...I don't see many(if any) Patriot players on the list....and we all know why.

when the first one goes and the second one improves-even from horrendous to average-we will see exactly how well the pats rather "tight-fisted" methods actually work

jury's still out

Yes the jury is still out. 5 AFC Championships, 3 SB titles and winning practically 3/4 of your games is all due to Brady and the AFC east according to the guy whose team can win 9 games and win the division. LMAO @ U.

The other point about this is that starters get injured - not sure what the average missed games by 'starters' due to injury is in the NFL, but it is probably in the range of 64 (4x16) and 96 (6x16) games. That means you are relying on reserve players for significant time in every game. Having quality back-ups is one reason not to overspend on all your starters.

People complain about BBs misses in FA and trades a lot - Ocho etc. but for the most part they have not been top of the market deals and they haven't crippled the team long term. And the successes have been great and at great prices.

Just spend to the cap. Kraft said he was going to do that this year - he seems to do that every four years or so - this is the year. WE have one of the best QB's in the game...time to put a respectable defense on the field...spend.

1 in 10 here pine for Williams, Revis, Fitz and the like. The rest of us are preaching fiscal responsability but targeting younger players. Talib, Vollmer great GM work. The best. Jenkins, Wilson, Washington.... Meh

+1, if it costs you $22mil in dead money last year then you aren't being fiscally responsible signing 20 low-mid tier guys to find a small handful that play above their contracts but not enough to bring you over the hump. It's alright to go out and sign a very solid young player entering their prime instead of 4 vets and cutting 3 in camp. The Fitz's, Williams, and Revis's of the world are great but for their price also isn't being fiscal responsible on the other end of the spectrum. You have to balance it out where you get a couple top end pieces and maybe slightly pay more then you want to then supplement them with these lower end deals. There is no reason to be more then 5-10mil in dead cap and certaintly not $22mil because you signed 20 players with $1mil bonuses and end up cutting half in camp.

1 in 10 here pine for Williams, Revis, Fitz and the like. The rest of us are preaching fiscal responsability but targeting younger players. Talib, Vollmer great GM work. The best. Jenkins, Wilson, Washington.... Meh

+1, if it costs you $22mil in dead money last year then you aren't being fiscally responsible signing 20 low-mid tier guys to find a small handful that play above their contracts but not enough to bring you over the hump. It's alright to go out and sign a very solid young player entering their prime instead of 4 vets and cutting 3 in camp. The Fitz's, Williams, and Revis's of the world are great but for their price also isn't being fiscal responsible on the other end of the spectrum. You have to balance it out where you get a couple top end pieces and maybe slightly pay more then you want to then supplement them with these lower end deals. There is no reason to be more then 5-10mil in dead cap and certaintly not $22mil because you signed 20 players with $1mil bonuses and end up cutting half in camp.

+2 PatEng .... yes, invest more in the vertical and better choice pieces than spreading horizontally across many inferior pieces.

What an interesting method of evaluating production vs cost. From a total team perspective New England ranks 2nd only to San Francisco.

Don't know for sure if BB is the best in the business but I don't know of anyone who's better.

long as he has brady and the afc east he sure will be up there!

when the first one goes and the second one improves-even from horrendous to average-we will see exactly how well the pats rather "tight-fisted" methods actually work

jury's still out

now i expect howls to the moon from Rusty and his seven Dwarfs but u are intelligent and fair-minded enough to understand this ATJ...i think

You mean they will only go 11-5 like the did going the whole season without Brady? Oh well if that's a bad season I guess we will have to live with it. What was the Giants worst season over them past decade? 11-5 like us?

The other point about this is that starters get injured - not sure what the average missed games by 'starters' due to injury is in the NFL, but it is probably in the range of 64 (4x16) and 96 (6x16) games. That means you are relying on reserve players for significant time in every game. Having quality back-ups is one reason not to overspend on all your starters.

People complain about BBs misses in FA and trades a lot - Ocho etc. but for the most part they have not been top of the market deals and they haven't crippled the team long term. And the successes have been great and at great prices.

I agree with you here. You need depth more then ever, and BB has put us in position to field a championship contender every year( maybe not 2009 and the start of the defensive rebuild) by "building a team" and not blowing his wad on unproven FA types. Some fans do not realize having 1 of the best qbs in history also means you commit a significant portion of your cap to himfor 13 years) and it makes it more difficult to go after the tier 1 FA guys. Then we lock up our own home grown talent more then most teams. Look at the amount of money we have invested in our core...

Brady

Gronk

Wilfork

Hernandez

Mayo

Mankins

Volmer

Look at the ravens. They had to cut half of their starters just to get joe flacco signed cause the guy had 1 great post season run. Look at the cowboys, they are hamstrung because they knew they had to give romo 50 million to keep him. They can't sign anybody in FA. Look at Pitt, or half the teams in the LG and the moves they were forced to make. The list goes on and on.

The only other legit championship contender you see making as many moves as we have is denver. We have signed amendola, talib,volmer, wilson, Hoowy, 2 average receivers who played for bad qbs, arrington an undervalued cb, 2 cfl pass rushing prospects with solid potential, andstill have more cap room then most teams in the LG???.

Ill take the BB formula all day everyday. It is proven, and unless your living under a rock, you know this is true.

I don't pretend to be a genius football mind. These things seem fairly obvious:

1. Having a legit NFL QB gives the Pats and other teams with elite QBs a huge leg up on the rest of the NFL. Too right it has.

2. BB's model of allocating resources across the roster has given this team some pretty good depth, arguably at the expense of spending years trying to replace certain highly paid players with multiple draft picks And free agents. Fiscal prudence has cost the team on the field at times during the season, but has helped in the overall big picture of sustainability.

3. The insanity of teams like the Redskins and Cowboys (Romo?) are prime examples of why throwing cash at the problem is not the solution and why, over the long term, the Pats are able to stay competitive because they do enough in the draft and through FA to be in the hunt. That, plus Tom Brady.

4. There are maybe 1 or 2 guys I'd be happy with as GM if BB left tomorrow. Brady or not, I think he getit what it takes to build a team.

You can argue the philosophy/strategy on how they spend their money but you are spewing nonsense when you say they are "tight fisted".

I agree, they aren't tight fisted but I also don't think they spend their money wisely at times either. I use last year as a prime example. Yes they spent to the cap but $22mil was in dead money instead of players on the team. That means 1/6th of the cap spent was on players they cut in camp. Not exactly the best use of the cap. But, that's what happens when you sign 20 players to $1-2mil contracts with $1mil signing bonuses then cut more then half of them in camp. The argument can be made that signing 5-6 mid-upper tier guys with higher talent who have better shots of making the roster would have been a better use of limited resources. But then again I also don't agree that spending all that money on 1-2 players is very wise either as if one of those players doesn't work out it cost you big time. There are very few that want the high priced FA's every year but how about some proven starting caliber players closer to their prime? Maybe some that have higher upside and you take a slight chance paying a little more for that upside instead of signing 3-4 players who's careers have slowed do to age or injury and hoping they can give you 1 year of solid production?

The Pats methods in FA have kept them competitive but when push comes to shove in the end they seem to not have the talent to make the final push. I've said this before and I'll say it again, this is NE we don't play for the playoffs we play for SB's. I hold the Pats to the same level they hold themselves which isn't to just be competitive but to be the best and sometimes that means you need to take a chance on some higher upside players and pay a bit more then you like to get them sometimes.

The "top end pieces" the All Pro talent players on our team come via the draft and at rookie wage scale.

Paying free agents in the prime of their career is a perfect way to end up with a record like the Redskins under Dan Snyder, you know, the guy that paid Albert Haynesworth 100 million dollars... the same player we paid pennies on the dollar for. Once the majority of these players receive these huge contracts they shut it down, lose the hunger because they were only playing for the big pay day in the first place and the guaranteed money.

This isn't "tight fisted" or "cheap" this is simple real world economics that flies in the face of posters here who say sign everyone... all it's produced is the winningest record in the NFL since 2000. To the people saying "what has it done lately," we've been a few plays from winning two more Super Bowls and it's not because we had to spend more, its because we had to make a couple more plays when we had to.

Pittsburgh is annually the cheapest team in the NFL yet contends almost every year, having a GM and talent evaluator matters.

Belichick is the best, at least according to his record and like the old maxim goes "you are what you're record say you are."

Some "fans" here have unreal expectations, winning a Super Bowl is hard and luck plays a large part in it.

What an interesting method of evaluating production vs cost. From a total team perspective New England ranks 2nd only to San Francisco.

Don't know for sure if BB is the best in the business but I don't know of anyone who's better.

long as he has brady and the afc east he sure will be up there!

RESPONSE: Stop it. How good will your beloved Giants be without Eli Manning? As for the NFC East, the division has been mediocre for quite a while. The Giants won two championships because they got healthy, and white hot, at the end of the 2007 and 2011 seasons. Yet...because they played in a lame division, they were able to secure a playoff birth, despite a 9-7 regular season record. The Redskins, up to the coming of RG 3, have sucked. The Eagles imploded after trying to buy a championship, and putting all their hopes in a Michael Vick basket. The Cowboys have floundered in mediocrity under the stewardship of the ultra-egotistical Jerry Jones.

when the first one goes and the second one improves-even from horrendous to average-we will see exactly how well the pats rather "tight-fisted" methods actually work

RESPONSE: Aren't the Giants tight-fisted" as well? Ask Brandon Jacobs, Osi Umenyiora, and Victor Cruz. Aren't the better teams in the league "tight-fisted"? Please name for me a free-spending team that won a championship, in the salary cap era?

jury's still out

RESPONSE: I liked what I saw from Chandler Jones, and was somewhat encouraged by Hightower's play. But, as you say, the jury is still out. Interesting ProFootballFocus article. Apparently, the teams having those players listed seem to concur with the findings in the article.